


The Cost of Freedom

by lervinsmiss



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow To Update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5238305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lervinsmiss/pseuds/lervinsmiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi joins the Survey Corps against his better judgment for the promise of freedom. But what price does that freedom come to and what does it truly mean to him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Drowned Man

**Author's Note:**

> Following the events of ACWNR *spoilers if you haven't read the graphic novel/mange/seen the OVA*
> 
> Rating and tags will change as needed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

The ground rushed up to meet him as his knees gave out and made hard contact with the earth. Rain beat down relentless in its constancy, and plastered thick strands of hair to his face. The world blurred and slipped into a murky wash of colours before his stinging eyes.  
A silent scream escaped his throat with such force it pained him. There must have been a sound to it but he heard nothing apart from the pounding of blood in his ears as an uncontrollable shaking racked his body.

The rain soaked through his heavy cloak to the skin. It pooled around him, drenching his trousers and filling his boots. He prayed for it to wash him away in a torrent as everything fell out of focus.

Once, as a child, Levi had seen a man floating face down in the grimy canal that ran behind the row of crumbling houses where his mother lived and worked.  
He sat on a mouldering wooden bench, unmoving, wary in his youthful experience of slivers that might dig under his thin skin and leave throbbing sores. The body had slowly bobbed into view, flowing down stream from beneath an overhang before catching on a pylon or other detritus hidden under the surface of the water. A few other neighbourhood children had quickly noticed the body as they ran up and down the narrow track between gutter spouts and clothes lines and a small crowd amassed to gape at the discovery. One boy with grubby cheeks and dried mud plastered to his bare feet had plucked up a stick and began scooting over the slimy stone slabs bordering the canal. He stretched his short arm out to poke at the floating corpse, grasping the edge of the flagstones with his tiny fingers.

Levi had abandoned his perch to join the fringe of the gathering just as the boy’s stick jabbed a shoulder sticking up out of the turbid waters. The current shifted suddenly and the corpse rolled over exposing skin as grey as the soiled clothing that clung to its lifeless limbs. The eyes were gone, the mouth hung open and the thin tissues of the face were chewed away by whatever creatures manage to survive in the polluted canal.

One girl of four or so cried in a wailing, shrieking fashion until her mother emerged from their shanty house to scoop her up. Other women came out into the little alley to see the commotion and finding the source, quickly ushered their children home. He was still staring at the ruined face of the drowned man when his mother came to the water’s edge and wrapped her shawl around him. He hadn’t screamed or cried out like some of the other children. But when his mother picked him and cooed into his long stringy hair and rubbed little soothing circles between his narrow shoulders with her dainty hand as she carried him up the stairs to the little room they shared he began to sob.  
She whispered little nonsense things to him to calm his heavy breaths and wiped away the strings of snot and spittle from his face. She had told him that the man was at peace now, that it was like he had fallen asleep and there was no pain where he was, that all would be well and he had drifted off to the lulling sound of her words. 

Drowning was not peaceful no matter what anyone said and he knew that for certain now.

His throat was tight, his lungs burned and his insides cramped as every fibre cried out for air but he couldn’t draw a single breath. The edges of his muddled vision darkened. A dull thundering grew louder, drawing nearer.  
He welcomed oblivion.  
The thundering turned into hoofbeats. A voice called out to him through the foggy veil. The four horsemen from a priest’s horror stories had come for him at last.

The voice called out again, closer. He was returned to himself with a jolt. His lungs blazed in protest, his ears rang and the world shifted back into horrible, maddening clarity. 

_That voice_.

Levi turned quickly to the man who had ripped everything out from under his feet.  
There were words coming out of the man’s mouth but he could not understand them. His lips moved, those deep clear eyes drawn directly to him but Levi was so filled with rage there was no room within him to comprehend anything but the thick energy rising in his chest and turning his hands into tight fists.

He launched himself forward and toppled Erwin Smith from his horse in one swift movement. They were all flying capes and flailing limbs for an instant before Levi released the man and sent him skidding along the waterlogged field.  
As the Squad Leader made to right himself, hands slipping against muddy puddles, Levi drew his blades out. The memory of fetid water in his nose and mouth rose to mind as he stared down at the blond head bent before him.

 _So we’ve come full circle. How fitting._ He thought to himself.

Erwin looked up, mud smeared across his features like war paint. His face was set in stone but something like disappointment flitted at the edges of his down turned mouth.

A squelching of boots and metallic scrape of blades being drawn from their holsters behind him alerted Levi that they were not alone.

“Don’t think I can’t handle the both of you Mike!” He called out, eyes still trained on the Squad Leader. “You’ve got nothing to hold against me now. I’ll finish Blondie here and then I’ll put you down like the fucking dog you are!”

“So that’s it, Levi?” Erwin interjected, his voice calm and placating. “You’re going to kill me now after all this time.” Erwin reached into his jacket and Levi tightened his grip on the blade handles.

Erwin’s frown deepened. “What? Don’t you want what you came for first?”  
He withdrew a packet of letters and tossed them at the soaked earth in front of Levi who scrambled to save them from disintegrating.

“They’re blank.” Erwin huffed cooly. “It was a bluff. I never had anything on Lobov.” He clarified as Levi let the drooping pages slip from his grasp and melt into the waiting waters.

“Are you fucking insane?” Levi breathed. The realisation sent him reeling. Erwin had know their objective from the beginning. He knew who had hired them and why and he’d played along, drawing Levi and his friend’s into his pit of lies. He’d been played.

“Why did you need to involve us then? You got my people killed over your idiotic gamble! And for what you son of a bitch?” Levi drew his arm back in his rage and drought it down in a swinging arc but his weapon stopped just short of his victim’s throat.

Levi looked down in stunned amazement.

Erwin was grasping the blade in his own hand, blood trickling freely down his wrist and his face was set in such determined obstinance that Levi startled. Those unsettling eyes eerily magnified by the man’s fury. He looked like something wild, almost possessed. The air grew thick with the intensity of Erwin’s gaze, coupled with the strength and speed with which he had blocked Levi’s attack, the other steeled himself for swift retribution. Rather than a blow, the Squad Leader let out a quavering breath he had been holding against Levi’s notice.

“I didn’t kill your friends Levi.” He began, “Titan’s did. As they killed many good soldiers today.” He said with a hollow tone that caught Levi’s attention.

“And more will die if Lobov has his way.” He urged picking up momentum, “I didn’t just recruit you to throw him off my track, Levi, I saw your skill. Humanity needs that strength if we want to stand a chance at defeating these monsters.” Erwin looked at him appraisingly, judging his reaction but Levi was still in stunned shock. The Squad Leader pressed on.  
“Nobles like Lobov want us to cower behind the walls as if there is no other option. They’d like to keep us penned inside the way they kept you and your companions locked Underground. They see the Survey Corps as a threat to their sheltered existence and they’ll suppress us however they can. My bluff was risky but it bought us time.”  
Levi’s negligible hold on his blade slackened and Erwin moved it safely to the side as the man’s face grew pensive.

“What about your gamble?” Erwin challenged, “Was the risk of coming after me on your own worth it after all?” His lapis eyes bored into Levi’s own clouded grey and he faltered, dropping his blades in defeat.

Erwin had read him like an open book. He had abandoned Isabel and Farlan in his own personal vendetta against the Squad Leader and left them vulnerable. He’d known the risk and ignored their pleas to follow him and now he had paid the ultimate price for his hubris. He had put them there. He had taken the job when Labov's man offered them such a far-fetched prize even he knew was too good to be true. He had agreed to join the Survey Corps to escape arrest at Erwin’s offer without any bargaining. They were gone because he hadn’t protected them well enough when he could have. Their hopes for a life on the surface free of the shit and garbage smashed around him with their ruined bodies. He would swallow a lake of bilge water to reverse his decision.

“Don’t dwell on it.” Erwin stood looking down on him now, a study in patient composure.  
“There will be no way to move forward if you let your regrets consume you. What way is that to live?”

He looked the man in the eye; forcing himself to focus, stay grounded, keep from falling apart.

The rain had slowed to a thin mist, heavy bottomed clouds rolling away to lay siege on the Walls to the north. A speckling of blue sky could be gleaned between their bulky forms, weak shards of sun creeping along the edges.

Mike shuffled impatiently behind him. Erwin nodded slightly. “Looks like the storm is breaking. We’d better get moving if we have any hope of catching up to the rest of the company while the weather holds.”

Erwin held a hand out in offering; tentative, testing as if Levi were a stray that might bite him still. “What is your decision then, will you stay here? Or will you follow me?”

Levi considered his options but there was only one choice. He ignored the proffered gesture and stood his ground, regarding the other man closely. “I’m not making another deal with you.”  
It was the only stipulation he could come up with. He was all-in, there was no where to turn back to anyway.  
The shadow of a smile flitted across Erwin’s lips and held in his eyes as he lowered his hand to his side and turned to the waiting horses. “Let’s move out then.” 

The seasoned soldiers settled on their mounts with practiced ease as Levi took the reins of a strange horse and climbed up into the saddle. He lagged behind the other two riding expertly up out of the shallow valley, avoiding patches of deep puddles and sinkholes in the swollen slope of the verge. He took one more look at the expanse of carnage over his shoulder; Titan remains steaming and crumbling with each passing second. In time, Isabel and Farlan too would be no more than a darkened patch of earth. He turned back ahead, forcing his mind to bring up an image of them alive and whole. Committed it to memory, prayed it wouldn’t fray and decay.

Isabel’s smiled, joy etched in the creases of her cheeks. Her crooked teeth poked this way and that between her thin lips, too wide for her face, as she spun along the floor of their apartment. Farlan leaned in the doorway, his cool eyes following the girl’s movements as a secret smile graced his handsome features. He heard the echo of their laughter as the field opened up and allowed him to race quickly over the high ground. 

His chest still burned, tight like his ribs had become too small for his lungs to expand, but he held himself up in the saddle and sucked in gulps of air as the wind whipped his face and left his eyes dry and stinging, pounding the earth behind the other soldiers.


	2. Tripwire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Three of Levi's first expedition beyond the wall leaves him grappling with his choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so much longer than I meant and I will try to continue this piece but I can't promise it will be to any schedule. Chapters will vary in length dramatically as I go forward. Originally this was supposed to be much longer but I felt like it was clunky enough in places.

The storm continued its northward journey as the straggling units regrouped in the prevailing respite from the downpour. They rode over the saturated fields, eyes trained on the plains and hills and distant tree lines for movement. Nothing came, but their slow progress kept weary minds ever vigilant. The horses risked injury in sinkholes and keeping their precious supplies intact provided a constant battle between force and will to prevent the carts from becoming trapped in mud pits. By the time they finally arrived at the crumbling walls of their second, and final, checkpoint of the expedition it was full dark.

A slew of activity ensued in a way that was only possible with the promise of sleep close at hand. A small guard was appointed to sweep the surrounding buildings and once the all-clear was delivered soldiers hurried to secure the wagons over night and corralled horses in a surviving barn adjacent to the main gate. Bed rolls were brought out from horse packs and the floor of the great hall was quickly littered with a patchwork of makeshift beds. 

The old fortress was in worse repair than the last one but a roof was a roof and it was a blessing that the place still had one to boast.  
Levi’s thighs ached from riding, his shoulders and elbows were locked stiff from his constant hold on the reins and he felt desperately exhausted. The prospect of a night’s rest in relative peace was just enough to force himself out of the hard leather saddle he had become adhered to.

In the flurry that had ensued upon the company’s arrival, Commander Shadis and his surviving squad leaders gathered by the wagons; debriefing and discussing their movements for the remainder of the expedition.

Levi allowed his horse to be led away and entered the fort, evading the curious gaze of one particularly hawk-eyed and beaked squad leader, and found an isolated corner of the main hall near a former service corridor. 

Since his forced conscription into the Survey Corps, he had relied on his keen instincts to detect exit points and plan against ambush. Rarely a day had passed since leaving the Underground that he didn't find himself scanning a room for hidden attackers or weighing up his odds against another soldier should hostilities come to a head. Although his mission had been abandoned with his true intent exposed to his target, Levi couldn’t drop his guard for a moment regardless of any perceived truces. He was an exposed spy, surrounded by strangers, and without a single ally.

He dropped his pack and settled down, knees popping and back aching against the lichen-covered wall, and let his head fall back to rest on the cold stones.

The torches and lanterns that had been lit with such expert speed in spite of the lingering dampness in the air were hastily extinguished as sleep stole over the fort like a puff of air.

Levi listened to the rhythmic hum of breaths in and out. He closed his eyes as his limbs and joints twitched in tired agitation, willing his own breaths to even and his body to still but he felt a restlessness rise in his chest. When he had been riding he could block the thoughts creeping at the corners of his mind. If he kept moving forward, kept his eyes trained ahead, focused on taking air in and letting it out in equal measure he could keep the images of blood and shredded fibres of cloth and skin pushed down.

Now there was stillness all around and his mind was free to stir up every picture he had tried to keep at bay; Isabel slipping out of view between twin towering walls of flesh, Farlan waving to him so peacefully he may have stood at the bow of a passenger ferry but for the blood running down his grinning chin.

Levi balled his hands into fists and pressed them hard into the sockets of his eyes in desperation to erase the gruesome scene which flickered in and out of his mind repeatedly. The words they had spoken at their final parting echoing again and again. 

It’s too dangerous to be out there on your own!

I’m coming with you too!

I don’t need all this shit from you! Just trust me!

Is that an order?

Guilt bubbled up from the pit of his stomach like thick tar that caught in his throat and choked him. It slipped past the safeguard of his mouth, escaping as a wet sob. He clenched his fists tighter and struck out at the wall beside him with a stifled curse.   
Ancient mortar came crumbling away from the wall as it was dislodged beneath the flat of his fist and chinkled to the floor in a little dusty pile. Someone moved in the corridor and Levi froze, panic rising as they stepped closer in the darkness.

Fuck! Levi thought, cradling his maltreated hand in his lap as a familiar voice questioned the dim night.

“Who’s there?” They whispered.

“The hell do you want?” Levi gritted through his teeth.

The blind steps halted mere feet from the edge of his pallet. “Levi? Is that you?”

He could just make out the shape of Hange’s ratsnest-head against the starry sky that peeked through the gaping roof, arms held out as they crept closer.

“Did Blondie send you to keep an eye on me again?” He released his injured hand and slowly traced the side of his leg until his fingertips brushed the hilt of the knife stashed in his boot.

“Who’s ‘Blondie’?” Hange paused mid-step, the blurry shadow of their head cocked in confusion. 

“You mean Erwin?” Hange asked. “Wait, did you think Erwin’s been having me follow you?” 

“Why else would you be popping up every 5 minutes to ask me stupid questions and stink up the place?” He countered, gripping the handle of his blade in a weak attempt to ebb his temper.

“No! No, Levi. Erwin didn’t ask me to do anything like that.” The shadow waved its arms, placating. “He just told me you had a really unique fighting style that I might be interested in observing. You know? For research!” Hange explained. “He was right too! You’re technique is quite fascinating. I’m sorry if my questioning made it seem like I had any ulterior motives, I am genuinely very intrigued in the secrets behind your skill- in a purely scientifically investigative capacity!” They added with haste. 

Silence hung heavily between them as the soldier waited in the darkness.

“Especially if the rumours I’ve heard about today are true.” Hange reached, coyly. 

A coldness flooded him. His knuckles were numb from the force with which he held his knife, the grip on it keeping him grounded as he fought the urge to strike out at the dark smudge of the soldier in front of him; slash across the narrow throat in one quick motion and sprint for the stables and escape before their body could hit the floor.

Levi took a steadying breath through his teeth but maintained his death grip.

Of course, gossip travels fast in this pack of dogs. He should have learned by this point that any business of his would quickly become common knowledge but he didn’t need any reminder of his loses.

“Sorry to disappoint,” He clipped, “but I’m not feeling any chattier tonight. Besides, there’s no one left to butter-up so you might as well give it up.” His voice remained flat, controlled, despite his raging temper. “I’ve got nothing to share with you.” He finished, just above a whisper.

Hange shied, taking a few slow steps back toward the main hall. “Right. Well I’ll let you get some rest then.” 

They turned and faded into the shadowy body of the hall.

Levi sat motionless for several minutes before releasing the desperate hold on his knife, returning it to his boot with shaky fingers. He dropped his head to his knees and tried to keep his rattling breaths hushed while the night slipped on around him.

-

Noise softly reached Levi, pushed and pulled him to wakefulness. The gentle stirrings of early risers; those who had been in the service long enough to consider the call of reveille a lie-in, floated about the ruined stonework. Bedding and clothing rustled, harnesses, like horse-tack, jingled and low murmurs rose up through the chilly air. He had drifted off in the early hours, his tense grasp on his senses having worn thin, and found a few fitful hours of sleep before dawn. 

The red raw lids of swollen eyes cracked, testing, and Levi let his vision focus in the blurry pre-dawn light. The sky, viewed through the gaping rafters, was a purplish grey and morning mist filled the hall. He adjusted the scratchy woollen cape around his shoulders with stiff fingers, made dumb by the cold and damp, and stretched out his locked knees. The precious little sleep he’d managed had done nothing to ease his battered body and his clothing was still wet in patches around his shoulders, knees, and the ass of his trousers.

Levi slowly rose to his feet, careful not to strain his aching joints and set about straightening his uniform and righting the many straps and buckles of his harness. Levi took his time, letting his slow hands tighten and slacken a strap there and twist another back into position there. He was appreciative of the quality. 

In the underground, he had always struggled to maintain his gear without calling too much unwanted attention to himself. There were black market smugglers and traders who could sell him parts at a premium should his turbines jam or a cable snap and need replacing. New grapples were easy enough to come by and leather was pricy but abundant for replacing belt straps, but the merchant who sold to him one day was just as likely to take silver or food from the MP the next for information on Levi and his people. Having a name well known and feared enough to keep most low-level thugs off his doorstep was only as good as his ability to obscure the target etched on his back by bigger fish.

Don’t have to worry about anyone else getting caught in the crosshairs either.

Levi mused dully and plucked the unused bed roll up from the ground, shoving it into his pack as he picked his way across the flagstones between sleeping bodies. He pointedly ignored the few eyes that followed his progress toward the dooryard, keeping his eyes trained on the growing light beyond the gateway. When he reached the wide arch he caught a glimpse of Erwin Smith and Commander Shadis walking through the open courtyard. He froze, pack slung over his shoulder and one foot poised over the gravelly earth. Erwin noticed him standing still in the hazy morning light and gave a curt nod before returning his attention to the Commander as they disappeared behind the stoney outer wall.

Brow furrowed and shoving aside the anxiety that came over him so suddenly when he encountered the squad leader; something akin to an insect caught in a spider-line, Levi continued out into the brisk air in search of the stables.

At this hour he expected the old barn to be clear of human traffic. There were no further movements called for the day as of yet, and Levi hoped his absence might go unnoticed should he manage to lay low and out of sight for a while. The company would surely begin dividing up into smaller parties to unload and store the supplies from the carts. But before they could get to the busy mindless work of heaving boxes of gear and blades and bundles of rations there would be talk. Dull and needling chatter over chicory coffee and stale biscuits. Conversation Levi had no interest of patience for. 

He crossed the threshold into the dim building. It’s roof was well intact but stank of musty hay and fresh horse shit. Levi strained his eyes in the dark to assure he didn’t wander into any stray piles in the poor light.

The horses in their pens whickered as he passed them by. Levi thought of the one he had abandoned when he’d launched himself at the first Titan the day before. A quick little thing with thin legs; Jacko. Levi had only just gotten a handle on riding him without cursing the willful beast. He mulled over the possible fate of his sometimes-faithful steed.   
Mike had handed him the reins to a spare horse but Levi couldn’t even remember it’s colouring as he thought back on the long ride from the valley to the checkpoint. He couldn’t remember much of the previous day at all except for what he was desperate to forget. Had Jacko managed to escape out into the field to be rescued and returned to the rest of the pack? Or had a Titan crushed him in its bumbling as easily as had been done to Isabel? 

Levi shook his head to clear the memories rising fresh in his groggy head. He let his pack slide from his shoulder, mindful that it landed on a clear patch of the dirt floor. As he looked over the stalls for an animal he recognised to distract his wandering mind, muffled steps drew closer and Levi became aware of another soldier in the barn.

"Looking for someone?"   
The man was about a head taller than Levi and sturdily built with an unshaven face and a scruffy mop of dark brown hair. Levi recognized him from his brief forays to the stable on base but had never paid the soldier much mind. He surveyed the rows of horses and turned to Levi with an open smile. 

"Lose your horse yesterday?"

Levi gave a noncommittal grunt, "Something like that." 

"Happens easy enough on expedition, especially for new recruits.” The soldier looked down at Levi with a conciliatory smile. “It takes a while to bond with your mount. Really get them to trust you and work with you." 

The soldier leant forward against the door of a nearby stall and reached his hand out to the horse inside. It nuzzled it's large snout into his palm and he produced a thin carrot from under his cape. 

"Take Pumpkin here, for instance." The soldier offered the carrot and the horse gleefully accepted, sucking it into it's mouth with thick lips and munching it down in two quick crunches.

"She's been with me for 2 years now; I could lose her in a herd of wild horses, but one whistle and she'd come galloping back."

The soldier looked on at the chestnut mare with affection and scratched it lovingly behind the ears. Levi shifted his weight uneasily and considered slipping away before he had to listen to the man continue to wax poetic about his pony. But the soldier turned to him again, seemingly returned from his revery. 

"I'm Dita, by the way. Dita Ness." The soldier stretched a hand out to him, the very same that had just been shoved up to a horse's slobbering mouth. Levi regarded it with absolute disgust and Dita retreated with an amused chuckle.

"You're Levi, right? Haven't seen you around the stables much back at the base. You're friend, on the other hand was a natural." 

Levi's attention snapped back to the soldier’s face and his eyes narrowed, trained like daggers. Dita continued, oblivious to Levi's perturbance. 

“Isabel.” Levi breathed through clenched teeth.

"It’s a shame.” Dita nodded, “I'm saddened to see natural talent like that lost so quickly." Dita’s eyes softened.

“A damn shame.” He finished lamely, absentmindedly reaching out to stroke his mare again. 

Levi felt sick. How had he not noticed that this man had taken such a keen interest in Isabel? He felt a surge of emotion; a latent urge to protect the young girl, a familial defensiveness against Ness, this stranger who had come to know someone so close to him and he didn’t know a damn thing about the man. Levi opened his mouth, half formed threats flying to the tip of his tongue before he closed his lips again. What did he have to protest against, who was he defending anyway? The girl was dead, he hadn’t witnessed or suspected anything untoward in her behavior with any soldiers still breathing outside the walls. His shoulders slumped and he let out a puff of air in a quiet sigh. 

Dita turned to him, his eyes soft and smiled in a strange apologetic way that took Levi by surprise.

“Sorry for your losses.” Ness said softly.

Before Levi could process the sentiment, a shadow blocked the weak light coming in through the open door. Dita looked up and stiffened into a salute. Levi turned and his insides clenched up. He felt that new familiar trapped sensation again; as if a hand were holding him in place as he desperately squirmed to flee. Erwin paced towards them, nodding dismissively to Dita.

“At ease.” He bade, a brief smile stretching his mouth as he spoke and quickly glanced at Levi before his features dropped back to neutral.

“I’m glad to find you here too, Levi. I have a request for you both.” 

Dita relaxed into a calm stance of attention while Levi crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. Worry rose in his gut and he didn’t want it showing. 

Erwin continued, unfazed, “While the majority of the company begins stocking this checkpoint, Commander Shadis and I will be taking a small scouting party on an exploratory mission to evaluate the surrounding territory.” His commanding gaze flicked between the two of them, seeing that they followed his announcement. “With any luck we should find another structure on our route to make for a suitable cache for resupplying on our next expedition to this region.” He added for their benefit. “We have promising intel that matches up with some cursory maps of the area.”

Dita nodded politely and Levi fought the urge to fidget. He wasn’t certain why any of this was important for him to know and he didn’t like the creeping feeling that it was about to become clear.

Something passed over Erwin’s face for a moment before he lifted his chin and proceeded. “As you are both aware, we suffered many casualties yesterday; most notably to our right flank and vanguard. That has left us in dire need of spotters.” He turned to Dita.

“Ness, I understand you have been studying the new formation in great depth. I’d like to put your knowledge to use on this excursion.” He pronounced. Dita stiffened, hands balling and unfurling nervously.

“You’ll be pairing up with Mike Zacharius to cover the forward left flank.” He commanded with easy finality. “You two will be our eyes on that side and relay any activity to myself and the Commander at the centre of the formation.” 

“Understood, sir!” Dita’s voice boomed as he swung into another salute. Erwin nodded and the soldier returned to a stiffened rest. 

The squad leader turned his attention back to Levi.

“After yesterday’s events, Levi, we’d find it most beneficial to have you along on this excursion should we encounter any large groups of Titans.” He stated plainly.

Levi shifted uncomfortably and when he spoke, he put more force into his words. “And that’s a request?” He sneered. “What if I don’t want to come along on your little romp?” Levi drawled flippantly. 

Erin’s eyes narrowed minutely but he chuckled with good natured honesty that surprised both soldiers.

“No I suppose it’s not so much a request as a direct order.” He replied with sublime gentility.

“We’ll be departing from the main gate within the hour to make good use of the day.” Erwin announced with official finality, grasping his hands behind his back. Levi noticed, then, that the right was bandaged neatly with clean cloth. “You should make your preparations and pack enough rations for three days. Our planned route should only take us out about a day's ride from this fortress but we must all be prepared for the unexpected.” He nodded to them and turned, pacing out of the barn into the growing golden light of day.

Levi stared after him, at once relieved by his departure and agitated by the lingering effects of his presence. He couldn’t shake the image of that bandage, concealing the deep slices he had left there, and how easily the squad leader had spoken to him. How jarring his laughter had been in Levi’s ears, as if he had not come a hair’s width from death at Levi’s hand just the day before. 

“Well,” Dita spoke up beside him, breaking his frustrated musing. “We’d better find you a good horse and quick.” 

-

To his credit, Ness knew horses. Three quarters of an hour after Squad Leader Smith had strode out of the stables, Levi sat atop a lean dark-coloured mare called Hellena whom he was assured had a quick and agile gate. She had been easily manageable as Levi loaded her with his saddlepack and led her out into the dooryard to join the quickly-forming scouting detachment.

Two rows ahead, he could clearly see a golden crop of hair and broad shoulders towering over the group on a muscular, fawn-coloured gelding. Levi wondered if Dita’s expertise had played a hand in the squad leader’s choice of mount and he couldn’t help but muse on the soldier’s keen insight when he spied Commander Shadis further ahead on a scraggy, mean-faced mare whose tail swayed irritably from side to side.

Before he could contemplate the coincidence further, the Commander signaled to the formation and the small party clambered out from the gate into open country.

Less than half a day had passed since their arrival at the fortress. The ground was still soft on the surrounding grasslands, but an hour in as they moved further into uncharted land and higher ground the landscape changed from sweeping grasses to patchy swathes of craggy granite. 

Levi’s thighs burned in protest as the horses strained uphill. 

They climbed rocky slopes overlooking deep gorges that ended in gurgling, rushing streams swollen by the rain. Three hours into their torturous ascent, as they picked over loose rock and prayed to whatever deities might spare an ear that their horses kept their footing and that none should roll an ankle or go rolling uncontrollably down the steep walls of the gorge, they reached a plateau. 

A vast, sprawling scene stretched out before them towards the sky. Far to the east, mountains rose up from the plains, dwarfed by their distance. And to the west a forest of giant conifers beckoned. 

They rode on with ease over the plains, the earth dry unlike the valley below and their horses seemed to rejoice in the change as much as their riders. They picked up their pace and dashed over the scrubby grasses, weaving in between one another with agile maneuvers. 

The command point at the head put an end to their celebrations quickly as a call went out from the Commander to tighten the formation and pull into a new configuration. The officers moved into the middle of the group and the rest fanned out into a loose circle around them. Dita was dispatched to the front-left flank to help spot and Levi nodded to him as he fell back behind the command centre. 

He glowered at the two young scouts on either side of him. He felt at once that he was being guarded like a criminal and in turn that he was babysitting these snotty young things still wet behind the ears from training.  
They risked sideways glances at him but when he turned pointedly from one to the next with a withering look they each paled and stared ahead. 

The company rode on, tight and precise. Another young scout with white-blonde hair pinged back and forth from the cluster or commanding officers and the advance groups at the head. 

For a the better part of an hour, Levi thought the good weather and easy terrain might spare them any excitement. The plains gave a clear view, if a Titan appeared they had plenty of time to react. 

Therefore, when the little messenger came tearing toward the command centre from the south-east spotting position with clumps of grass kicking up behind his horse's flanks, Levi grew concerned.

He watched the boy relay to the officers and then he was bolting off to the forward right spotters.

“LEVI!” The Commander’s voice boomed ahead of him.

He grimaced to himself and tightened the grip on his reins. He urged Hellena forward, casting a scowl at each of his escorts as he went. They seemed only to gape after him with such bizarre expressions. Levi ignored them and galloped ahead.

At the command point, Shadis only spared him a fleeting glance and returned his pointed gaze ahead. Smith, however, nodded to him in that same polite, sober manner. 

“Mike smells Titans.” He informed, matter-of-factly. “Several. Moving fast.” He added.

Levi balked, “Smells them?” He looked around the officers. None seemed the least bit concerned or surprised. “The shit does that mean?”

“It means he smells the buggers!” Shadis barked.

“Approaching rapidly from the south-east.” Smith interrupted, returning the briefing to its formal beginnings. “He guesses there’s up to ten of them depending on their size.”

“We’ll reroute to avoid them. But with the speed at which their moving it’s certain they’ve detected us already. They’ll be on top of us in less than 30 minutes.” The Squad Leader continued. “If we’re to have any hope of outrunning them with minimal casualties some of the detachment will have to engage.”

It was said so simply Levi took a minute to grasp his meaning. 

“So you want a handful of us to throw ourselves into their mouths so you have time to get away?” He wasn’t angry and he wasn’t surprised. 

“I’m sure you’ll think of a way to avoid their teeth.” Smith retorted, Levi didn’t fail to notice a crinkling around his eye as he watched the squad leader. 

“Fall back and inform Baer-Varbrun at the rear that you and his squad are to distract and delay the encroaching Titans at any cost. And if you are successful, to reconvene with us in the copse of trees ahead.” Smith nodded and turned to the other officers, directing and arranging signals. He neither waited for an acknowledgement or confirmation of his orders.

Levi took it all in for a moment; the rapid-fire commands, the clicking of flare cartridges fitting into place. He noticed that Shadis only glared ahead, didn’t say another word.

He pulled back, turning Hellena around and galloped back toward the two scouts who had so anxiously flanked him. They were completely ashen now with their bugged-out eyes searching the plains.

“Just follow the flares and don’t piss in your pants.” He shouted over his shoulder as he passed between them.

Baer-Varbrun was about a hundred yards ahead of him, solid and square-shouldered. They’d been introduced shortly before departing. He was a stone block of a man with tanned-leather skin and a permanently furrowed brow. 

He had stood in front of Levi, weathered hands on his hips, eyeing him up. “You’re shorter than I expected.” he’d said, looking down on him.

“And I didn’t expect to find any old geezers around here but you’ve proved me wrong.” Levi stared up at the man with cold disinterest.

When Baer-Varbrun laughed it shook his whole body. “Another year closer to the grave,” He agreed “And still kicking. Must mean I’m doing something right.” He smiled at Levi with a challenging twinkle in his eye.

Levi scoffed, “Probably gotten good at standing behind a wall of shitting brats.” 

Another bark of laughter erupted from the hulking man and Baer-Varbrun had clapped him on the shoulder amiably. “You get used to the smell!” He bellowed and swaggered away to his waiting mount.

Now he nodded to Levi as he neared his position. 

“Report?” The squad leader called to him.

Levi wheeled around and matched pace with Baer-Varbrun.

“The hound smells trouble up ahead.” He deadpanned. “Bunch of Titans, from the east, moving fast.” 

Baer-Varbrun stiffened and gave a quick nod. “What are our orders?” He inquired, all business now. 

“The rest of the company is running away to hide in that forest up ahead.” Levi indicated just as a green flare shot up in the air from the centre. “Me and your squad are gonna play bait!” He finished with a flash of teeth.

Baer-Varbrun grinned at that. “Sounds like fun!” He boomed. 

Answering flares rose up throughout the formation. To the left and right, Darius’s squad looked to him expectantly. He fit a cartridge into his flare gun and aimed it directly above his head. He fired and a white plume of smoke billowed forth. 

Orders received.

He reined in his mount and gave a high-pitched whistle as the rest of the detachment changed course west and raced ahead.

“Hange! Bastien! Pull in!”

Levi grimaced. He’d forgotten that Hange was in the rearguard and he could barely disguise his distaste for the soldier as they galloped towards him.

“What’s the deal, boss?” Hange called out. “It’s already pretty lonely back here!” 

Hange stopped in front of Baer-Varbrun eyes shooting towards Levi and back.

“Oh! We’ve got company!” They sing-songed.

“About to have a fuck load more.” Levi drawled.

Bastien cantered into the group from behind him and fidgeted in his saddle. 

“Squad Leader Baer-Varbrun?” The boy saluted. Levi thought he looked grey.

“Don’t get your pants in a twist, kid. At ease.” 

Levi watched the boy deflate slightly. He was young, 16 maybe, and likely from the same trainee group as his attendants. 

Fresh meat. 

“We’ve got orders.” Baer-Varbrun followed quickly. “Seems our spotters up ahead have detected some Titans.” He announced with cool conviction. “How many did Zacharius sniff out?” He turned to Levi expectantly. 

“Ten. Maybe less, maybe more?” Levi replied. “Didn’t see ‘em. Just smelled ‘em.”

Bastien made a half-choking sound behind him but Baer-Varbrun shot them both a deathly glare, bringing him their full attention. Hange, in comparison, nearly fell from their horse in anticipation.

“How far away were they? This is a perfect opportunity to analyze the accuracy of his sense of smell!”

“Rein it in Hange!” Baer-Varbrun barked. “This isn’t an experiment!” He steered his horse round until he was nose to nose with the soldier. 

“We’re in the field. We’ve got something fierce coming our way and we need to keep our heads on straight if we’re gonna get through this in one piece.” He finished, steely eyes locked.

Hange sobered at once, straightening in the saddle and nodding assent.   
Baer-Varbrun turned back to Levi. “Relay everything you’ve been told.”

He gave the Squad Leader every detail he’d received, what little there was of it.

“So we’ve got fifteen, maybe twenty minutes if we’re lucky, before we come face to face with the bastards.” Baer-Varbrun confirmed. 

“Just about.” Levi assented.

“Okay.” Baer-Varbrun squinted into the distance. “Now what?”

He looked between the three soldiers. Hange chewed at their lip while Bastien’s brow crinkled in a theatrical display of thought.

“So we can’t be sure how many Titans are heading towards us?” Bastien asked.

“I guess Mike’s nose isn’t quite sophisticated enough for exact numbers.” Hange mused.

Baer-Varbrun grunted for lack of a better response

“We should wait.” Levi announced.

Darius' head swiveled toward Levi and he turned full in his saddle to face him.

“What the hell for? An invitation?” He bellowed.

Levi met his indignation with cool dismissal. “If we don’t know what we’re facing how can we make a decision?” He replied cooly. 

“If we wait until the Titans are within sight, we have a much greater chance of engaging the threat with more practical options.” 

Hange studied Levi for a moment from behind their thick field goggles and turned to Baer-Varbrun.

“He’s got a point, Boss.” They bit their lip harder in concentration. “There could be ten Titans between 5 and 8 metre class or a gaggle of 3 metres.” They paused again, glancing at Levi.

“Then again it could be three abnormals.” Hange shrugged. “We have better odds at forming a sturdier plan if we can make visual confirmation of their numbers first.”

Darius squinted into the horizon, weighing the idea in his head for a moment. Sitting on their hands wasn’t natural to a Survey vet. “Better pray for good odds then, boys.”

Hange cackled with excitement and turned their mount toward the southeast horizon.  
The rest followed suit. Watching, waiting; all eyes trained on the distant spot where the rolling green grass of the plain ran into the smooth pale sheet of the sky. 

The goggled soldier rummaged through their saddle pack and withdrew a pair of field glasses. They swiped at the lenses with a corner of their jacket and brought them to their face; lense to lense. 

The minutes dragged on in silence. They held their breath and dared not blink until a faint, dark blur surfaced along that steady, distant line.

“Time for a headcount.” Hange whispered gleefully, focusing the spy-glasses with practiced speed. The metal gleamed in the sunlight as their hands moved.

“One, two, three little Titans.” Hange hummed, staring through the lenses. “Four, five, six little Titans.” They continued quickly. “Seven Titans all in a pretty little row!” Hange cried ecstatically, throwing their head back and flinging the fieldglasses to Baer-Varbrun for confirmation. 

“Seven.” He agreed. “Between 8 to 10 metre class, maybe 12 metres at the most. All lined up too, like a formation.” He passed the glasses to Levi.

“That’s out of character, isn’t it?” Bastien piped up, eyes flickering urgently along the horizon.   
“Could they be abnormals?” He asked, voice shaking with uncertainty.

“Hard to say.” Baer-Varbrun grumbled.

Levi brought the eyepieces up to his face and squinted through the unfamiliar frame. The formation was foggy but plain enough as he looked down the line of Titans, all running nearly perfectly in step, shoulder to shoulder. They were fast, but no more so than the average Titan he’d witnessed so far.

“It’s fucking weird but they look like normal Titans.” He countered, tossing the spy-glasses on to Bastien who scrambled to catch them in his shaky hands.

“Any ideas?” Darius looked from the horizon to Hange, then Levi and Bastien who was still squinting into the lenses.

Hange rubbed their chin, musingly. “They’re big ‘uns, but it’s only seven of them,” They reasoned. “We can probably start taking them down in pairs and if they make a break for it to catch up with the rest of our men we can chase down the stragglers and finish them off on the run.”

Darius hummed, considering their odds.

“What if they don’t go for the rest of the company?”Bastien asked, gripping the brass handle of the field glasses in his hands. “What if they decide we’re enough and surround us?” 

“Then we’ll have given the rest enough time to get to the forest safely.” Baer-Varbrun looked at the boy solemnly. 

“Why not use their formation against them?” 

All eyes turned to Levi.

“They’re running together in a line.” Levi repeated. “We could ground them all at once and then slice the napes while they’re at a disadvantage.” He explained.

“How?” Baer-Varbrun stared at him.

“If we anchor a line each into the Titan’s at either end, then cross the lines in front of the whole formation and wrap back ‘round the end Titans to secure the lines, the tension should take the whole lot down in one go.”

“Like a tripwire.” Hange beamed with realization. 

“Yeah, a tripline.” He answered flatly, ignoring their eye.

Baer-Varbrun considered the two for a moment. 

“Alright,” He decided. “Hange and Levi will set the trap and Bastien and I will skirt around the edges to get behind them. As soon as they start dropping, we’ll start slicin’.” He concluded.

He smiled ruefully at the prospect. Levi sneered in return as he eyed Hange who waggled an eyebrow at him enthusiastically. 

Baer-Varbrun turned his attention to Bastien and jerked his head to the right, signalling the boy to join him for a review of their plan and something of a pep-talk.

“So,” Hange whistled, leaning over their horse conspiratorially. “How do you see this going down?” 

Levi narrowed his eyes in a deathly scowl. 

“Listen, and listen good.” He warned. “I’m not dying today. Not out here in the middle of nowhere because of you, shit brains.” He spat.

Hange stilled, shocked mute.

“So you follow my lead. You don’t give me shit and you keep your mouth shut unless you have something real important to say.” 

He paused to take a breath before he continued but Hange cut him off.

“Don’t talk down to me.” Their voice was low and thick with something hidden just below the surface. “I don’t care if you dislike me. Lots of people dislike me.” Hange’s face was pinched tight in an attempt to control their expression.

“I don’t need you to like me.” Their voice was growing husky and they swallowed thickly, composing themselves. “But I need you to work with me here. We’re on a tight schedule, am I right?” Their eyes darted to the horizon from behind their thick goggles. “So let’s wrap up the small talk and get down to business.”

Hange raised their eyebrows at Levi, inviting him, challenging him.

He snorted. “Fine.” 

“When the line of Titans is in range we’ll make our move.” He started.

Hange interjected, “What’s our range?”

Levi’s brow furrowed a moment but he closed his eyes and gathered himself quickly. 

“Just wait for my signal.” He breathed, exasperated. “I’ll know when they're close enough.”

Hange opened their mouth but Levi looked at them, pleading with his eyes. He didn’t have the words to explain why he couldn't explain.

Hange swallowed their question.

“We’ll work from opposite sides of the line.” He began, holding the index finger of each hand up roughly a foot apart in illustration. “When your Titan is in firing range, anchor into their leg. Aim for the knee.” He ran through his plan quickly, crudely animating the scene with his hands. “Once your line’s secure, ride for my end and wrap around the last Titan. We’ll just have to keep from getting tangled in the middle as we pass each other.” He added as an aside.

“Leave that to me.” Hange met his uncertain glower. “Trust me.” They insisted.

Levi swallowed his doubts and nodded. “Then we just hold on tight and try not to crap our pants.” He finished with a forced smile.

Hange beamed, “Good thing I’m not wearing any!”

“Fucking Sina’s tits.” He muttered and turned his attention to the growing shadow on the horizon.

They waited. 

Baer-Varbrun and Bastien joined them and they considered a few contingencies, addressed a few final details but mainly passed the minutes silently watching.

The line of Titans was near enough now that they could make out individual bodies.

“Alright,” Baer-Varbrun interrupted the echoing quiet of the field, a low thundering gaining volume. “We’ll circle around behind them, hopefully you sitting ducks look pretty enough to distract them.” 

He gave each of them a crooked smile and saluted. Bastien mirrored him and they rode off, tracing a wide arch across the plains.

Hange and Levi sat still, like statues. Eyes fixed, gauging the distance, counting down with bated breath.

500 metres.

Levi’s reins creaked in his death-grip.

400 metres.

Hange fidgeted, eyes darting between the looming figures, rapidly growing in size before them, and Levi.

300 metres.

The hairs at the back of his neck prickled, his skin felt tight.

"Hange! Ready!" He shouted as he kicked Helena into a full gallop.

"Wahoo!" Hange echoed from behind as they quickly matched his pace.

They split and bolted over the field, grass and dirt kicking up behind them like tiny explosions.

200 metres.

Levi drew all of his focus to the lumbering 9 metre on the outer edge. He raise himself up in the stirrups and fingered the trigger on his gear waiting; calculating the distance. 

Now! 

He squeezed the trigger and shot an anchor cable out from his left hip. The ends of the grapple found their target, burrowing into the flesh of the Titan's rightmost shin.   
He waited a beat to see it didn't slow down or speed up or worse yet, rip the grapple free. It charged ahead unfazed. Levi kicked his mount’s sides and dashed like mad across the open space in front of the Titans. 

Hange was racing toward him now, the distance closing rapidly and Levi’s mind spun trying to predict their next move. With moments to spare Hange vaulted up onto the saddle, reins grasped in one fist. Levi ducked his head low and they galloped past balanced on their saddle with the expertise of a circus performer.

He could feel the vibrios scrape of their lines running over one another. He fought the urge to glance over his shoulder and spurred his horse forward with greater urgency. 

Up ahead, he spotted the Titan at the end of the line; a 10 metre with Hange's grapple buried in its right shin, near the knee. He uttered a half-oath of relief and stood in his stirrups as he neared it. 

He twisted in the saddle and took aim, finger hovering over the trigger. A beat passed and he squeezed; sending a grapple shooting through the air before him. 

It burrowed into the spot just above the left knee, and Levi felt the instant tug of the line as it pulled him towards his target. 

He felt his horse rush forward from beneath him as he left the saddle. 

The air whipped at his eyes and his ears. 

He disengaged just before making contact and felt the line reeling in at his hip with lightening speed. 

The heavy, doughy flesh under his boots made for difficult footing but he carved into it with his blades and held tight. 

Hange cried out from across the plain, their voice carried over the line of beasts between them.

“Levi! Ready!”

“Go!” He roared.

He pulled a blade from the meaty thigh and took a searing slice from where the thick tendons behind the knee of a man would be and the titan flailed and staggered as it’s leg crumpled beneath it, nearly cut in two.

Levi held tight as the beast toppled to the ground. The line at his side strained and he panicked for a moment at the prospects of the cables tugging him apart or constricting but he bared down. 

Not much longer. 

It was a hope, a small prayer as the lines continued to strain. 

The payoff followed in a moment.

The titan beside him lurched forward, unbalanced. It’s arms swung wildly to regain its standing, and in doing so careened into the next titan in the line. Levi scanned across to Hange’s position to witness a similar scene unfolding. Titans toppled to the ground taking their neighbours with them. 

One scrabbled on it’s knees, attempting to right it’s hulking frame as Baer-Varbrun descended on it, slicing through the thick nape with his blades as steaming blood sprayed over his face and arms. Levi followed suit. 

He disengaged his lines and moved over the lumpy flesh of his titans back to cut it’s nape like an artist carving through clay. He turned his face away from the spurting blood and made to jump to the next but he froze in place. The titan on the ground beside him stared straight at him, through him, around him. Giant mossy fish eye filming over. It unnerved him, made his sweat grow cold under his arms and at his temples. Before he could react the eye grew large, focussed on him for a split-second and then rolled back in the monstrous head. Levi looked up to see Baer-Varbrun standing on the beasts meaty shoulder.

“You alright, lad?” He grunted glancing around them.

Levi shook the vision from his head, he must have imagined it, must be fatigued.

“Fine!” he shouted and dashed past the Squad Leader, slicing the nape of the fourth titan flailing on the ground as he went.

Scanning the line once again he saw that Hange had taken down the two titans at their end and naped them both. Bastien was struggling on the back of the final titan as it rocked from side to side on it’s distended belly. 

“Take ‘em out, boy!” Baer-Varbrun called out to the young scout. 

Bastien looked round, wild-eyed and the titan flailed its arm, knocking him off balance. He lost his footing on the beasts soft flesh and tumbled to the ground. 

“Shit” Levi gritted out and leapt over the gap between the titans, firing a grapple into the flailing titan to keep from falling off the same as the brat on the ground.   
He cut into the nape in a fluid motion, slicing from left to right with both blades at once and the titan shuddered and stilled beneath him and the steaming blood evaporated in the air.

Bastien staggered to his feet, staring up at Levi pale-faced and shaking. Darius landed at his side and grabbed his shoulder, squeezed it reassuringly.

“You’re fine boy, next time.” He patted his back and walked through the maze of titan limbs, whistling for the horses.

Levi disengaged his grapple and let it reel back into place. He jumped from the titan before it could begin to moulder under his feet and shot a disgusted glance Bastien’s way. 

“Fucking useless,” he grumbled, sliding his blades into their holsters with a metallic scrape. “Could have gotten yourself killed!” he shot over his shoulder.

Hange joined them from the other side of their two kills, sheathing blades and wiping steaming remnants from their fogged goggles.

“C’mon, Levi. The kid put up a good effort!” Hange beamed.

Bastien’s ears and cheeks were colouring rapidly as he tried to make himself as small as possible in Levi’s withering disdain.

“Great effort trying to die.” He retorted.

“That’s unfair, Levi! He-”

“Enough chit-chat!” Baer-Varbrun cut them off from his mount. “Let’s catch up with the formation before anymore of those naked bastards turn up.”

Levi hunched his shoulders and trudged to Hellena, waiting patiently behind Baer-Varbrun’s Gelding. He climbed up into the saddle and avoided the other's eye as they set off over the plain, leaving the decomposing titans behind.

-

They rode for any hour in silence toward the wide outcrop of trees that was dwarfed against the vast sky, casting round behind them for any further sign of titans. The plains stretched out like an endless carpet of coarse grass before the forest sprouted up before them. Huge pines towered up into the white-blue air, larger than Levi had ever seen. Their woody trunks looked like the leathery legs of some ancient animal and their limbs stuck out straight like a man holding out his arms. They dismounted and lead the horses over the uneven grounds at an opening in the dense pines. 

They had ridden past trees like this over the last two days but none so tall and Levi had never been so close. The trees of the training course on base were fat stunted things with the limbs chopped off to provide more surface to grapple onto. These were strong, powerful and full of life. As they walked the horses into the forest, skirting around moss covered rocks and the feathery green leaves that shot up from the forest floor, Levi reached his hand out and let his fingers drag over the roughened skin of the tree. 

He felt something run over his hand and pulled it back with lightning speed at the sight of a spindly spider making its many-legged dance across the bark. He shook his hand in reflex and rubbed it against the side of his uniform trousers for good measure.

Too much life. 

He gripped his mounts reins and carefully picked over the spongy earth, narrowing his eyes at the dim canopy above with suspicion. 

They picked through the bracken for a quarter of an hour before they found a deer trail that had been widened by many feet, bracken stems snapped and trampled and the dirt kicked up. Baer-Varbrun examined the ground quickly and pointed out the impressions from horseshoes.

“They must’ve come into the forest another way and followed this track.” He reasoned, “Shouldn’t be long until we come up on ‘em.” 

He tugged his mount forward and continued up the path.   
Not more than 50 paces up the trail they heard the murmur of voices and shuffling of hooves and chinkling of bridles through a gap in the wood. He called out and a dark head that Levi recognized as one of the young cadets he had ridden beside earlier, popped out from around some brush shrubs. She beamed at them and called back to someone beyond the scrub.

“Squad Leader Baer-Varbrun’s squad has returned!” She announced and waved at them with such vigour she nearly fell into the bush.

Hange stifled a laugh from the back of their little convoy and Levi cringed at the enthusiasm.

Great, he thought. A welcoming party. 

They came through the bushes into a wide clearing. The ground dipped down beyond the tree line and rolled through the forest, somewhere beyond the faint echo of rushing water whispered through the thick branches. In the centre of the clearing a pile of wood had been gathered for a fire.

Commander Shadis and two other squad leaders stood at the opposite edge with an array of maps spread over a fallen log. They turned and Shadis nodded to them affably, waving to the other squad leaders to leave their discussion.

“Good to see you alive!” He bellowed to Baer-Varbrun, “Come give us a report and your squad can see to their horses.” 

Darius turned to Levi and handed him the reins to his gelding and leaned in toward him. 

“See with Ness if he knows what our movements are, then get ‘em watered and seen to right.” He clapped Levi on the shoulder and stepped off to speak with the Commander.  
“And good work out there, the lot of ya!” He boomed over his shoulder as he went.

Levi shook his shoulders and lead the horses across the clearing to a spot where nearly all the rest of the divisions horses were grazing and drinking from canvas buckets. Their bare backs looked to be dry as they milled around in the sunbeams that shone through the open canopy. Levi dropped the leads and unsaddled them quickly, releasing them to their devices as Hange and Bastien followed suit, working at the buckles and saddle packs.

Ness sat on his cape in a sunny patch of the needle littered floor within arms reach of his herd. 

“Not bad for some.” He grumbled at the horseman as he flung himself on the ground a safe distance from both. 

“Not at all,” Dita brawled “nice to have you join us. And in one piece too.” He gave Levi a slow, appraising nod and flashed him a smile. 

“Yeah, it’s a miracle. How long have you been waiting?” Levi clipped, pulling is flask from inside his jacket and taking a swig. The water was hot and tasted of rust.

“We got to this spot about an hour or so ago, Pere continued on to map the forest with Alma and Calland.” He leaned back on his elbows “And Mike and Olna are off trapping rabbits, should be back soon. Hope they catch enough.” 

He chuckled and wiggled an eyebrow at Levi. 

“Guess I can make myself comfortable, then.” He deadpanned.

Dita erupted in a burst of laughter and settled back onto his cape. “That’s what I’m for.”

Hange stood a little ways away, hands on hips, assessing the space.

“Wonder if you climbed up into these trees how much of the forest you could see through.”

“Give it a go, maybe you’ll tire yourself out.”

“Was that banter, Levi? Are you joking with me?” the voice was all smile and playful jest.

“Just hoping you’ll get winded enough to stuff that windbag of yours shut long enough to get some peace.”

Dita chuckled again beside him and he bristled.

This was too familiar. He scowled and turned away, caught sight of the young scout hovering by the horses, stood still and boring holes through him.

“What?” Levi barked at him.

Bastien started and blinked a few times, shook his head as he regained his composure.

“Nothing! I- uh” He stammered, spooked like a dear and let his words fall off. He looked at his mount as if to remind himself it was still there and wandered away, joined the dark haired girl where she was sorting through the rations and small supplies they’d brought on their foray. Every now and again he glanced over his shoulder in their direction to whip his head around once again at Levi’s persistent glare.

“You don’t have to be so hard on him.” Hange muttered, watching the boys shoulders hunching.

“Why shouldn’t I, nearly got himself fucking killed.” He spat.

“He’s just a kid, we haven’t all got a killing instinct like, some people.” Hange falter and trailed off.

He got the meaning and stood, shoving his flask back into his jacket.

“Doesn’t fucking matter, shit-for-brains needs to learn to take care of himself. Won’t always have someone to watch his damn back.” He brushed past Hange.

Away, need to get away

They grabbed his arm, eyed him through thick goggles

“I think he was trying to say thank you,” Fingers squeezing his bicep “For saving his life.”

Levi shook himself from the grip.

“Whatever.” He mumbled storming off through the trees.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck.

That well of anger, the panic was rising up inside of him again. He had been quick enough this time, why hadn’t he been quick enough before? His throat was burning, his eyes felt raw. Nails dug into the meat of his palms, fists balled at his side. He let his legs carry him into the wood, further, down the slope towards the rush of water.

Away, away, away.

He reached the white, bubbling water only to face Smith crouched on the banks as two younger scouts waded up to their calves, fishing lines in hand.

They all turned at his approach, the squad leader’s eyes widened fractionally before he smiled politely and nodded to him. Levi did not return the gesture; nor did he salute, yet again.

The scouts in the river, seemed more excited by his presence. The one with fair hair who had ridden relay through their formation looked at him expectantly and then nervously eyed his companion whose freckled face made him look dirty.

The second boy had more courage, it seemed, and he swallowed noticeably before speaking up.

“Has Bastien Keller returned with you?” He asked.

Three sets of eyes stared up at him from the river. He suddenly noticed how young the boys were, how they seemed so much younger than that. 

He felt a pang of- guilt? Or regret? Something that gnawed at his ire, changed it. Worsened it.

He’d been surprised to encounter these three by the riverside but now he was scowling and the boy’s faces seemed to grow more concerned.

“Shit, yeah.” He mumbled. “He’s fine.”

Their shoulders relaxed instantly. Relief washed over their faces and they smiled to each other, turning back to the flowing water and their forgotten lines.

Erwin Smith stood, brushed the wrinkles from his uniform and started walking up the short incline.

“Carry on, Otto, Tobi. As you were, I’ll go hear what Squad Leader Baer-Varbrun has to report.” 

He looked to Levi with a similar sort of expectancy as the scouts but Levi ignored him, turned to walk further into the woods.

“Ah!” the squad leader began, distracting him from his path. “I wouldn’t wander too far in.” He cautioned.

Levi turned on his heel and rounded on the man, “Why’s that, then? Worried I’ll be lost in the woods?”

Smith smiled, “No, Levi. It’s only that Mike and Olna have laid several traps for our supper. They can be quite difficult to spot, I wouldn’t want you to set one off in error.” He reasoned so cooly it made Levi’s skin prickle with irritation. 

“It would be a shame to lose good meat.” He added.

Levi glowered but stepped aside. He couldn’t go further into the wood, he couldn’t go back to the clearing. 

He glared at the boys in the river. They moved slowly, stepped carefully over rocks and spoke sparingly, focused on their lines.

Erwin watched him as he watched them.

“You could help Otto and Tobi.” He said softly.

Levi started and turned his glower back on the tall man.

Erwin still had that smug smile on his face, like he thought Levi has simple. “There isn’t another line but if you know how you can help gut their catch.” He suggested.

Levi grimaced. “I grew up underground, not under a fucking rock. I know how.”

“Good then. I know how well you can handle a blade.” Erwin kept that same serene smile on his face as he glanced at his bandaged hand.

He hated Smith’s closeness, that smug smile. Why was he so calm? It infuriated.

“Is that an order?” Levi retorted, fists clenched.

“Do you need it to be?” 

Levi turned, propelled himself down the slope and squatted down at the bank. He didn’t look over his shoulder. When the boys turned to him, he looked past them. 

He noticed a handful of silver-grey kilch to his left and pulled the switch-blade from his boot. 

The boys turned back to their lines and Levi grabbed a fish and let his mind go blank as he sunk the tip into its underbelly. 

-

Otto and Tobi chatted through the daylight hours and Levi steadfastly ignored them. They carried their haul to the clearing wrapped in their jackets. Levi following silently, hands icy from dunking them repeatedly in the rushing water, as the sky paled. Gold streaks peaked through the scraggy limbs overhead and birds called out to their mates to come home to roost.

Pere and his squad had returned and were unsaddling their horses as the squad leaders all gathered around the new maps. Shadis caught his eye at the centre of the gathering and for a moment he couldn’t read the strange look in the man’s eye before he returned to the furling scrolls. Levi brushed it off, chalked it up to the Commander’s perpetual foul temper. At the middle of the clearing, Bastien and the girl, Nina, were tending to the fire. A spit was assembled, ready for the fish to be smoked and game roasted. 

The boys rushed ahead to greet their comrades. Levi had finally pieced it together between their chattering that all four must have come to the Corps together as cadets. Trained together, lived together, grown up together. They clasped hands with Bastien and slapped his back, pestered him about the mission Levi had not spoken a word of. The boy laughed nervously, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head when he spied him skulking in the background. Levi turned away from them and retreated to the far corner of the camp to check Hallena.

The mare nickered as he approached and eagerly shoved her snout into his hand.

“Soppy tart.” he whispered, running a hand along her downy muzzle.

Ness gave a nod of approval as he gathered up the empty buckets and whistled to the young scouts to lend a hand at fetching water for the herd. They clamoured to their feet and tripped over each other as they passed through the trees for the river once more, leaving Nina to tend the fire with Alma as Caland helped Dita carry the empty buckets.

They returned with the hunters, carrying a small bounty of rabbits, and the camp suddenly came to life as supper was prepared. Hands moved quickly, the smell of cooking meat wafted around the clearing. Levi’s gut cramped and gurgled. He hadn’t noticed the hunger that gnawed at him until now but he hung back from the flurry of activity, sucked on a hard biscuit from is pack to tide him over.

The light dimmed from gold to amber and the soldiers began taking their small wooden bowls to the fire where Alma and Nina dished out portions while Tobi rotated the remaining fish. Dita had taken his own bowl from his pack and eyed Levi.

“I’ll get your portion, give me your bowl.” 

Levi looked up at him. “Why?”

“I can tell you don’t like people much but it’s no reason to starve yourself.”

“Maybe I have other reasons.” He frowned and bit into his rock-hard biscuit.

Dita motioned with his hand impatiently “Give me your bowl.”

Levi relented, reaching into his pack and flung the crockery at the man. 

“Stubborn as a damn mule.” Dita shook his head.

He fetched a few decent shreds of rabbit and half a fish for each of them and they ate beside the horses

“Good fish.” Dita prompted.

“Hmm.”

They passed the rest of their modest meal is silence until Dita swiped a finger round his bowl and popped it into his mouth, savouring every last morsel. He leaned back with the bowl in his lap, humming appreciatively.

Levi motioned to him, “Give me your bowl. I’ll wash up.”

“Kind of you.” the horseman grinned, handing his bowl over with haste.

Levi rolled his eyes and crossed through the trees once more.

He leaned over the bank, running his fingers over the porous surface of the bowl. He scrubbed until he couldn’t feel it any more and his hands became dumb and slow.

He heard someone approaching from behind; a rustle of leaves, the crunch of a twig underfoot, and peeked over his shoulder.

“Tch! You again.” He turned back to his scrubbing, dumped the water out and placed it on the soft grass beside him and dunked the second bowl in the the chilling river. “Don’t you have a subordinate to do that for you?”

Erwin knelt at the riverbank and few feet away, dipping his bowl under the current in turn.

“I have hands.” 

Levi glanced at the bandage wrapped around Smith’s right hand.

“For now.” He quipped. “You need to change that before it starts to rot.”

“I will.”

He brought the bowl, filled with water, to his lips and drank. A small runnel of water crept down his chin.

Levi turned away.

He wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket and spoke again. “I heard Darius’s full report, you’re plan was very clever. How did you know it would work?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then you’re very lucky that it did.”

He clicked his tongue and pushed himself up from the ground.

“And Levi.” He stood, stepped closer, “You’re actions were very admirable.”

Levi gave no reply. He walked back up the slope through the dim twilight in silence.

-

An eye filled his vision, enormous and unmoving. It stared blindly, filmy and green like algae clinging to the walls of the canal. Levi’s hand reached for it against his will, fingers outstretched, millimetres from the sticky cornea. He nearly had the tips of his fingers to it. Then the eye shifted, it focused, bearing into him. The single eye locked on his. His breath came flooding back fast, he didn’t realise he had been holding it the whole time, seconds or hours, but it rushed back filling his lungs to bursting and he blinked. An instinct, an instant, a fraction of a second, and he was thrown into darkness. Pitch black. The eye was gone. He couldn’t open his own to see it. He needed to see it again. The eye was closed, it would never come back. It would never open again. Where? Where has it gone? Why did he leave it!

Levi’s heart beat like it was trying to escape from his ribcage. He swallowed thickly.

Just a dream, it’s just a dream. 

He ran his sweating palms over his thighs and tried to calm his breathing.

He needed to focus on where he was, what he knew.

The woods, in the woods. With a detachment beyond the wall. It’s a little more than a half-day's ride from the base we arrived at yesterday. Or was it two days ago? It’s night still, five, maybe six hours till dawn. You’re alive, you’re alone. You’re not alone! You’re surrounded. You’re safe. No one here is safe. You’re on your own. Isabel is dead. You let her die. You watched Farlan die and you did nothing! You abandoned them! Why didn’t you die with them? 

“Shit!” 

He gripped his knees and sucked air in through his teeth to try to stop the rising panic.

“Yer chasing monsters lad.” Baer-Varbrun whispered to him in the dark.

Levi held his breath a beat, choked the emotion down. 

Not here, not the place.

“Something like that.” He rasped.

The squad leader was hunched before the fire some yards ahead, a broad silhouette against the dying flames.

“The darkness never helps.” He extended a flask in offering and Levi abandoned his rumpled blanket, tugging his uniform jacket on as he staggered to the fire’s edge.

He crouched down and accepted the flask, throwing his head back as he took a long swig. It was something strong and it burned going down and he was glad of it.

“Thanks.” He passed the flask back with a shaky hand but Darius waved it away. 

“I’ve had enough.”

Levi took another deep swig, letting it scour his throat, before corking it and letting the flask dangle in his grasp. They sat in silence, staring into the flames.

“You don’t need to tell me what keeps you up in the night.” The squad leader reassured him after several long minutes.

Levi gave a half-formed response somewhere between a thanks and dismissive grunt.

On the other side of the shrinking flames Levi heard shuffling, voices murmuring low.

“It’s a help for some, though.”

Levi didn’t respond, tried not to listen too carefully to the voices nearby but the murmuring softened and the shuffling continued.

Levi gave Darius a sideways glance and the man smiled, shaking his head as he stared straight ahead into the orange glow. 

“Then again, distractions always better.”

Levi clicked his tongue in disgust.

“Tch! Sina’s tits, I thought folk on the surface were supposed to be more civilized.”

Darius laughed, “We’re not above much of anything. ‘Specially not out here.”

He shook his head bemused and motioned for the flask. “Perhaps I will have another sip.”


	3. You Can't Go It Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“There was no need, do you understand?” He nearly pleaded._
> 
>  
> 
> _Levi sprung at his words. “What does it matter? I could end up titan food any moment.”_
> 
> _“And so could any of us, but if that’s what you want so badly you could do the others a favour and not risk their lives in the process.” Erwin’s voice had evened, cooled suddenly and it made that dark panic flare up from within Levi._
> 
> _“Then they should learn to stay the hell out of my way.” Levi growled._
> 
> _“That’s not how it works, Levi” Erwin’s eyes burned like a fire kept barely at bay but his voice was calm, controlled. Measured. “That’s not how this is going to work.”_

They packed down quickly in the morning with only biscuits for breakfast and set off through the wood, single file.

No further encounters beleaguered their journey, the sun shone bright in the cloudless sky. They traversed the plains and descended the gorge without incident to arrive back with time to tend their horses and aid in packing up the supply carts.

Men slept well that night. Men that weren’t Levi. Men who greeted their friends warmly, who shared their rations with one another and laughed together around the fires. Men who found within them something to be grateful of and Levi couldn’t even assure himself he was grateful to be alive.

He was relieved to depart the mouldering base the following morning, at least, and relieved that he was left to himself, passing the night in a dim corner until the pale, cool fog of dawn rolled round him.

***

Another day’s ride back north awaited them with anticipation heavy in the air. Someone had brewed chicory coffee and morale seemed to soar. Two titans were naped, no casualties. The company rode back past the shallow valley where the sun had baked the mud trenches into solid mounds and grooves that wrote their horrid story in the earth. Eyes stayed trained forward, enough was relived in their dreams.

The sun traced the sky overhead, journeyed west readying for its slow slide to the horizon. They were just shy of an hour to their initial base. There would be plenty of light to set camp. There was a well that still ran fresh and clear. Supplies had already been stocked in the cellars. There was a solid roof.  

A young forest flanked the company to the east and they rode close to its perimeter. A flare shot rang out from the left flank, red smoke billowed on the wind. A green flare shot up westward and answering plumes of smoke bloomed throughout the formation.

Levi’s position within the right-rear guard began to move with the rest of the company but he ignored the order. He rode for the treeline ahead, for the source of the red flare. Heads turned around him, someone shouted to him to stop. He kicked Hellena’s sides, urged her faster. No one pursued him.

He rode up hard along the tree line until he saw it; a five-meter titan pushing it’s way through the trees, snapping and dragging branches as it went. There were three corpsmen at the edge of the forest shouting directions to each other as the beast approached. One fixed his blades onto their handles but before he could make another move Levi was leaping from the saddle with a burst of gas.

He fired a grapple into the titan’s shoulder and reeled in, landing against its chest. He disengaged, firing another burst of gas and spiraled through the air. He slashed at the nape as he spun and kicked off of the beast’s hip on his return return to the ground and landed solidly. 

He checked around him but no other titans appeared. He whistled for Hellena and pointedly ignored the soldiers standing dumbfounded in front of him as the mare circled back to him. He vaulted up into the saddle and kicked her into motion, rode hard back into the formation as if nothing had happened.

He fell back into his position and the squad leader he’d been relinquished to that morning; he hadn’t bothered to hear her name, shouted questions to him that he didn't absorb. Just kept his eyes trained forward, reins clenched tight in his hands. 

Somewhere behind, someone had finally fired a flare giving the all clear and the formation continued on its original course north, but the riders around Levi continued to cast none-so-subtle glances his way until the fortress came into view. 

The stone walls loomed above its hilly perch. The gates were opened with the first wave of soldiers and the company followed through in turn. 

Levi dismounted quickly once they were through the rusting gate and made quick work of unsaddling and watering his horse. He snatched his pack up from the stable floor and slipped into an abandoned corridor, made for the western tower but half way down the empty passageway he heard steps following quickly behind. 

“Levi!” 

A moment of deja vu flashed at the back of his mind but he shoved it down. 

 _This fuck!_  

Levi wheeled around on his heel as Erwin caught up to him. 

“What you did out there was needlessly reckless!” His voice rang off the stone walls. “Not only were there other soldiers nearer and just as capable to handle that titan, but you abandoned your position.” His face was a curious mix of anger and frustration.

Levi scowled at the man but Erwin continued, undeterred. 

“As well as disobeying the directive and ignoring the formation, you used far too much gas and too many unnecessary maneuvers. That could cost you your life!” He paused but Levi said nothing. The frustration won out.

“There was no need, do you understand?” He nearly pleaded.

Levi sprung at his words. “What does it matter? I could end up titan food any moment.”

“And so could any of us, but if that’s what you want so badly you could do the others a favour and not risk their lives in the process.” Erwin’s voice had evened, cooled suddenly and it made that dark panic flare up from within Levi. 

“Then they should learn to stay the hell out of my way.” Levi growled. 

“That’s not how it works, Levi” Erwin’s eyes burned like a fire kept barely at bay but his voice was calm, controlled. Measured. “That’s not how this is going to work.”

Levi sucked his teeth and turned. He didn't want to talk, didn’t want to think. To feel.

_Out. Have to get out of here._

Erwin grabbed his arm, threw him against the wall and pinned him, disabled his striking wrist in a vice grip in one swift motion. 

“Have you even stopped to think about what happened to my squad?” 

His voice was far too calm. It hid something dangerous just below the surface, concealed a greater threat. 

Levi didn’t struggle, there wasn’t any point. Erwin matched him for strength and the odds stayed tipped firmly in his favor. He froze, conceded defeat. 

Erwin stepped back and slackened his grip on Levi's arm, released his wrist.

"They were with me in the Underground that first time we met, but maybe you don't remember." That edge creeped further into his controlled cadence but the squad leader held it at bay. 

"Oh, I remember." Levi spat back, voice low and vengeful at the memory of their first encounter. He tried to remember the faces of the two soldiers who had captured-

He shook his head. They were lost behind the image of Farlan and Isabel. He couldn’t remember seeing those soldiers much after that day. 

Erwin's fingers dug into his flesh again, painfully, before releasing him with a shove. "Good"

He turned away, back straight and stiff. 

"You're not the only one who has lost people, Levi.” He paused and the pieces finally clicked into place around the haze surrounding the previous days. 

The squad leader and Mike riding through the rain with an extra horse. Recruiting Ness for the surveying excursion.

“Wolff and Fabian weren't just good soldiers. More importantly than that they were my-" Erwin's voice grew husky and trailed off.

Levi stiffened with sudden understanding. 

Erwin turned back, surprised to see the look of shocked realisation on his face. 

Levi cursed under his breath 

Erwin sobered quickly. The air felt thick.

“I will mourn them, Levi.” He affirmed, “In my own way and in my own time but not now. We can’t.” 

That fire in his eyes changed, shifted and made him look wild for a second. Levi recognised it. His preaching face.

“There is more work to be done and I need you. I need you to survive.”

Levi took the words in, let them roll around in his head, testing their weight. They could just be words. It could all just be so much talk from some over-involved prick with his own agenda. Smith was slippery, two steps ahead of him at each turn. But the look on this man’s face was more than pure persuasion, far from blind ambition. He was a determined son of a bitch and he didn’t trust him for a second but he believed him. 

“You want me to help you get rid of Lobov.” Levi began, slow. Considered his words. “But you’re clever enough to do that yourself.” He waited, left Erwin to shed some light on his own thinking. 

“Not without exposing myself.” Erwin answered. “I’m bound to engaging Lobov through more traditional channels. If he figures out much more of my plan he can eliminate me as a threat by destroying my reputation, I could lose my position within the Corps.” 

“But _I’m_ expendable.” Levi interrupted flatly. 

“That isn’t how I see it.” Erwin was quick to correct, “There’s so much more that I see in you, and you possess talents that could be very useful to the mission I plan to carry out.” 

“If I make it back to the wall in the first place.” Levi countered, crossing his arms.

“Which I sincerely wish you do.” Erwin agreed. He let a thin smile crease his lips.

“So what’s this plan? You wanna steal from Lobov for real?” Levi cocked an eyebrow “Or tail him and blackmail him like you did to me?” 

Erwin frowned minutely, “We’ll discuss that in depth once we’ve returned to Shiganshina.” He cleared his throat. “Until then, please take my advice to heart. Stick to the formations and follow directives.” 

He looked at Levi then, met his eyes with an earnestness that he had to turn away from.

“Right, fine.” Levi huffed in agreement. 

He shifted his weight between the balls of his feet and Erwin seemed to suddenly appreciate his discomfort. 

“Good,” He echoed in mock ease. “I’ll let you take your leave.” He nodded politely and the corridor seemed to widen. The air cleared and Levi could somehow take in more oxygen as the squad leader turned and retreated back to the main hall. 

He watched his back as he retraced his steps, followed the effortless sway of his cloak as it shifted over his shoulders until the man turn the corner out of sight. The next moment he turned on his heel, desperate to escape the corridor before he could be interrupted a second time. 

He shrugged irritably. The sweat that had built up under his collar and between his shoulder blades throughout the day had dried making the fabric of his shirt feel gritty and it chafed where his jacket pulled tight over his arms and back. But more than the itching fabric, Levi felt uncomfortable in his own skin. 

He wanted to bathe desperately, to give his clothing a thorough scouring, to feel clean again. To rest, to be able to close his eyes and know that there wasn't a threat lurking in the shadows for him. He was tired. The adrenaline from killing the titan earlier had been so short-lived and the rage he'd felt at Smith's reprimand coupled with that constant uneasiness he felt in the man’s  presence had taken his last scrap of energy. He was spent and he was ready to go home. 

 _What home?_  

He had no home. He hadn't realised it until now. Isabel and Farlan had begun to talk so much about the new lives they would start after their clandestine mission; finery and style in the Capitol, peace and simplicity in the country, easy living above ground. Dreams of a future that were never meant to be. Even the humble, dingy apartment they'd once shared seemed so much further away; an ancient memory as if he'd left it decades ago, not months. 

How strange that they had planned never to return there and now that it was an impossibility, he felt a pang of sadness to walk the short flight of steps to the creaking front door with its worn wood and tarnished handle he could never quite bring to a shine.

Levi shook the thought away like a dog flinging water from it's sopping coat. He couldn't afford to dwell. Not out here. If that blond was right about a single thing, that was surely it. 

At the roofline, Levi watched the changing colours of the sky as the sun disappeared behind the treetops. Clouds smeared the bright orange-red a pale and peaceful pink that faded into the blue-black of night. 

He took a swig from a flask, lifted from the supply cart, and let the burn run down his throat to settle in his gut. 

He tried not to think too much about Isabel and Farlan, how they had sat at his side days ago, but their ghosts followed him. He realised it would be a long time before they did not follow him. Maybe they would always be there. 

He let their faces linger. They could stay, his silent companions. His constant reminders. 

***

The company departed at dawn next day. The sky was clear again, the light good and the soldiers well enough rested. Supplies were running low and the walls stood only a good day's ride away. 

They traced a circuitous route to map out any changes to the landscape made by the recent rain. A nearby river had burst its bank, but only marginally and a few trees had been downed near their most used trials. All manageable. 

By midday the top of the wall was in view and they stopped briefly to water the horses and a detachment split off to survey a nearby wood for hidden titans. 

Levi slipped from his mount to fill his flask. 

That morning he had made a sort of amends with his new squad leader, Anja, by learning her name. She walked her horse to the trickling stream just a few metres from Levi and he nodded to her curtly before corking his flask and swiftly marched away. 

She had asked him, before they departed, if she had to worry about him running off on his own again and if he liked the idea of becoming titan lunch. She wasn’t a large person but she looked as if she could deck a man twice her size without a fuss. He could appreciate that.

Levi told her he wouldn’t cause any more grief, he’d stay in his place. She had raised her sparse eyebrows at that.

“So long as you’re where I need you to be.” She said plainly.

She had looked as though she wanted to say something else, her hands twitched at her side but she only gave him a confusing look he didn’t understand and dismissed him to prepare his horse. 

He avoided Anja’s gaze now as he settled himself in the grass and pointedly glared straight ahead at the white-bright tops of the walls that peaked over the rolling hills to the north. They could be on good terms, the two of them,  but friendly was too much still. He had to make it back through those gates alive first. 

He had to keep a level head, keep his mind clear and his nerves at bay. He had to admit to himself that he couldn’t survive out here in the open fields and the dense forests beyond the walls on his own. He didn’t want these people around him. He didn’t want to make comrades of these soldiers but he did need them. 

He understood necessity. 

Levi fidgeted with his flask as he scanned the open country around him. It was a dangerous place, knew it first hand now but damned if it wasn’t a thing to look at. 

Open sky, thick pasture of waving grass that felt and smelled like nothing he’d ever witnessed underground. There was dirt and mud. Animal shit and all manner of things skittering around in the dark of night and broad daylight that set him on edge but the air was clean, fresh and just breathing it in felt like stealing something he wasn’t meant to have. 

Levi let his eyes slip closed and breathed deep.

Blew out through his nose and took in another lungful. Sighed out. Drifted.

-

_Smith on this knees in the mud, soaked through, head bowed. His blade swinging down. Smith looking up too late. Green eyes flashing for an instant. Rolling in the next. Red. All wrong. The eyes, the hair all wrong. He watched it tumble across the mud. Powerless. It stopped, staring. Blank. Green. All wrong. The colour was all wrong._

_A pair of mossy eyes bored through him. His heart stopped._  

He jerked awake, gasping. 

“Levi?” Someone called to him. Anja. They were moving. He steadied his breathing, wiped his face. 

“Coming!” He croaked, pulling himself to his feat with his flask in a shaky fist. “I’m coming.” 

If she noticed the way he staggered back to Hellena, or how long it took him to get atop her with how his arms trembled, she didn’t show it.

Another several hours passed, he couldn’t track how long. He counted minutes but they slipped out of his mind with flashes of flooded ground and rain. He strained his eyes and focused on the white of the wall but it crept up on him with a shock when they suddenly reached the towering gates as the dropping sun turned the world golden. 

There was shouting back and forth. The rear guard ran along their flanks, prepared for rogue titans, as the gates were drawn up. They moved forward as one and were plunged into darkness, cold stone walls replacing the open fields and boundless sky and in an instant the gates were dropped behind them. 

The next, they were returned within the walls, as if the world beyond had disappeared behind that towering gate and all that was real was this stony cage.

People crowded the streets to watch the Corps climb the cobbled road toward their headquarters. Some cheered, a few grumbled or hurled insults and Levi felt more exposed that he had outside. He avoided their faces. 

Within their own base, Levi felt an uneasy relief. It was like he’d been holding his breath for so long and finally let it go. But he hadn’t gotten the air back in his lungs yet. The ground under his feet felt solid enough but he was almost convinced he might slip through the paving stones if he didn’t keep testing it, scraping his toes around the gravel between each. 

He helps Dita in the stables when Anja dismisses him, not having much to debrief him on besides a, “Well done out there.” and a reflexive, “Get some rest.”

The jangling of the tack and rustling of hay as they got the horses settled back into their stalls washed over him like white noise. It was like a trance and soon Ness was urging him to get himself to bed with a light hand and low voice as if he were one of the animals too. 

He moved through the halls to the barracks, passing rooms of people busying themselves for the sake of not sitting still, murmuring in groups to keep the silence from creeping in.

Some watched him, trying to pretend they were not. He did not look back. 

For the briefest moment he thought to search for Smith but shook the thought off. The man would seek him out when he was ready. As much as he would rather keep his mind occupied, he’d wait for now. 

The corridors narrowed and darkened as he traced the path to his own room. Eerily quiet and only faintly familiar, as if he was remembering the route from a long ago dream rather than countless journeys back and forth over the previous months. Everything seemed different now that he had been outside those walls. More cramped and suffocating.

He stood in front of his own door for a long moment, hand on the latch. He leaned into it, could picture exactly how he’d left it days ago but his heart seized up with the anxiety of entering that space now. He inhaled sharply and pushed through the doorway at once before he could think about it any longer and cast around for anything that might be lurking inside.

A spy. A snooping corpsman. A ghost. 

Levi takes in the room; empty. It's close and dark with just a slim gap between the bunks and the tiny window letting the twilight in, but it feels too large without anyone else to fill it up. The sheets are made up neatly on the thin pallets just as he had instructed Isabel and Farlan to make them up hundreds of times before. Their spare shirts and trousers neatly hung on hooks. Everything tidied away for their absence, uncluttered for their return. 

He stands in the gap between the bunks. Alone.

His hand runs along the frame absentmindedly and he feels the grit of dust under his fingers.

It’s all he needs to tear himself from his melancholy. The room is filthy. It needs to be cleaned. Stripped. Scrubbed. Purged. 

He tears the sheets from the beds in seconds and marches double time down the halls to the washroom across the courtyard. It’s empty, too late for anyone else to think of scrubbing and pressing their bedding.

He stokes the fire under the iron cauldron to boil his washing water and adds more lye than might be necessary by anyone else's standards. He stirs and beads the sheets in the wooden wash buckets till they’re near threadbare and wrings and hangs them methodically before grabbing up a broom, a brush and a bucket of strong soapy water. By the time he is walking down the halls to his room once more the light has gone and the barracks have fallen silent. 

He pulls the kerchief from around his neck and ties it carefully over his nose and mouth.

The pallets are wrenched from the bunks and beaten, the bunks dragged away from the walls and the corners swept out. He grimaces as he clears a cobweb from the ceiling. The floors and walls he scrubs hard enough the bristles are ground down and frayed beyond use by the time he is finished and the top layer of the floorboards has practically vanished. When he is satisfied, the bunks are pushed back and he turns to his tiny window to polish it’s warped and bubbled glass with his own kerchief.

Outside, the sky is dark as pitch. Faint lights flicker along the parapets of the walled base and the stars over the looming, white-topped walls beyond. 

The cold of the night suddenly hits him, drenched in sweat from his manic efforts, and he shivers with his forehead pressed against the windowpane. 

With everything righted and the bedsheets most certainly still drip-drying before the coals, he creeps through the base to the communal baths. He fills a basin from the wall pump but doesn’t even consider heating the water. He strips, peeling his clothing away from his sticky skin and carefully folds and stacks each item on the bench by the door. He takes up his wash cloth and brings up a lather from his own bar of soap, a luxury he is glad for. He rubs at his skin, wiping the sweat and grime from each wrinkle and crevice until he is red-raw from the cold of the water and the force of his ministrations. He pours bucket after bucket over himself until the cold burns and he shakes. 

He sits on the bench, and lets the water roll down his back and legs. Lets the night air dry his skin. So what if it is slow? So what if he dies of a chill? 

But he thinks better of that particular death wish and wraps one of the linen sheets from the store cupboard round his waist and trudges back toward his room with his soiled clothes gripped in a tight fist. 

The hours have ticked on enough that those who went to their beds peacefully after sunset have now risen, chased by nightmares and visions from past excursions. Light seeps out from beneath a door, heavy breathing and muffled sobs escaping through the cracks all around. In the darkness, the base becomes a living, haunted thing. 

Levi quickens his pace, wary of meeting another soul at this midnight hour but as he nears the barracks a shadow catches his eye.

The hairs at the back of his head and along his arms, already raised from the cool air, stand at full attention as he catches a glimpse of fair hair in the lamplight. Weary blue eyes meet his for a moment before flicking over his naked chest and Levi tightens the grip on the towel at his waist and glares back at the man. Erwin bows his head, and moves on his way without a  word or backwards glance. 

It takes more of his will than he would have hoped to move from his spot but as he hurries through the corridors of the barracks back to his own empty room something about his laboured breath and pounding heart feels solidly unconnected to the slap of his feet on the timber boards. 

-

Sitting on the bare pallet of his bed with his shirt untucked, Levi lets slip close his eyes as the sky begins to pale and tries not to imagine another’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter felt pretty repetitive but i promise i'll get to some more interesting bits soon.
> 
> thanks for reading!
> 
> tumblr: [lervin-smiss](https://lervin-smiss.tumblr.com)


	4. Strange Bedfellows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of his first expedition outside of the walls, Levi must readjust to life within the walls as a soldier without Farlan and Isabel. He learns more of Erwin's plot against his former employer, Lobov, but with more knowledge come many changes and disruptions to any already unbalanced existence.

Nearly a fortnight had come and passed after his first expedition before Levi found himself in conversation with Smith again.

His days were occupied with training, cleaning duty, gear inspections, hurried meals in the mess hall, exercises, maneuver drills, formation reviews, displays on the parade field. The military routine kept him occupied in the daylight hours, passed in rapid succession and blurred together leaving him exhausted, unable to move once he collapsed into his bed at the end of the day. It also left him numb during the long, sleepless nights when he could not force his eyes closed and let the darkness claim his worried mind.

And so, when he was called aside at the end of a training session one late afternoon before he could shuffle off with the rest to queue up for supper, he was oddly relieved at the break in his monotonous schedule. He changed his mind when the training captain informed him that he was ordered to present himself to Squad Leader Smith in his office. Immediately. He felt his heart rate increase and a nervous weight formed in the pit of his stomach. He’d hardly seen Smith about the base since the night of their return. Presumed him occupied with briefings and figures, guessed he ate with the other squad leaders in private, although he saw Anja breaking bread with the rest of her squad regularly. There must have been a hierarchy in place that he didn’t quite grasp. 

He had, however, felt Smith’s presence in a persistent, nagging way. He felt watched, still, and had turned once or twice to find Mike’s hulking frame lurking nearby. His eyes trailing him as he shot between trees or squared off on the training ground. Sometimes he would be near enough to notice how the soldier’s mustache twitched beneath his long nose as he sniffed the air like a hunting dog. It made him edgy, being tracked by the Squad Leader’s man, when he was having enough trouble keeping his calm around base as it was.

He’d agreed to stay in the Corps. He’d agreed to help Smith deal with Lobov, although he still didn’t know how or when. He was assimilating. Or, at least, trying to. He could accept that he was not the most trustworthy ally, but neither was Smith. He’d let Levi and the others keep up their ruse until it had nearly gotten him killed. He was reckless and guarded. Manipulative and calculating. He was dangerous, Levi held no more doubts about that. But he thought back to the first night he’d returned to the walls, to an empty room, and he had chanced upon the squad leader. He thought of the way his hollow eyes had traced over him, like he could see inside of him, through him, like he was made of glass, and it terrified him.

He came to the sturdy door he had eavesdropped at several times in the past and paused, ear close to the jamb out of habit. There were two voices conversing inside, quiet but the conversation seemed heated. Much as he wanted to gain any edge on Erwin Smith still, he knew it wouldn’t help him if he were caught spying now. He straightened and rapped his knuckles on the door quickly then waited as the voices cut short and someone started across the room to admit him.

Zacharius. His face was a mask of bored disinterest. He didn’t raise an eyebrow or utter a breath, but held the door open and gave Levi a wide berth to enter. 

The room seemed more cramped than he remembered it, though nearly everything did now for some reason. He had only been in the Squad Leaders office a handful of times, mostly to be railed against by Darlett, and always with Isabel and Farlan at his sides. It was a cluttered and disorganised place he couldn’t imagine the man residing here could ever locate his own head, let alone a scrap of paper amid the mess of books and reports and scattered personal items. A tray from the dining hall mouldered on a side table in a corner and Levi took a purposely shallow breath. The late afternoon sun was shining through a window to his left at that glaring angle and set the looming figure of Smith in sharp contrasts of light and shadow making the hook of his nose even more prominent.

“Thank you, Mike.” Smith stood by his desk, hands behind his back, looking over a map. “Would you give us the room?” He didn’t even bother to look up.

Levi could sense tension wafting off of the hulking man beside him but Zacharius didn’t say a thing and stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind him. When they were alone, Smith abandoned the document to address Levi with his full attention. 

“I am sorry that I haven’t been able to meet with you personally sooner.” The squad leader motioned to a chair with his bandaged hand. It was wrapped with a fresh strip of linen and he guessed it was healing nicely by now. Levi ignored his gesture, preferring to stand with his arms hanging loose at his sides. Smith shrugged minutely.

“How have you been adjusting since your first mission?”

Levi shrugged, “‘d be adjusting a lot easier if I wasn’t being tracked by your hound all day.” He threw a look over his shoulder towards the door. He was certain the man was only on the other side listening out for any sign that he intended to see his original mission through. “If I wanted you dead after all, I would have done it outside the walls when I had plenty of chance and killed him too.” He jerked his head toward the door.

Smith took his seat behind the desk and looked up as if Levi were informing him that he’d changed his socks. “And I’m very grateful you chose not to.” 

The man set his blood boiling with how stubbornly polite he was. “So why are you having him follow me around like a damn shadow?”

The squad leader laid his hands, palms up on the surface of his desk. “It is not I who needs convincing of your intentions.” But he didn’t allow Levi room to absorb his answer and pushed on, voice low and measured. “I wanted to be sure you were coping after everything that happened during the expedition.” 

Levi clicked his tongue irritably and looked away, arms crossed firmly and defensively over his chest. He didn’t need or want coddling. He was surviving and carrying on and choking down his food every day and showing up for training. That was all anyone needed to concern themselves with and it was all they had a right to know as well.

“I know you were never an average civilian, Levi. But you weren’t a soldier either.” The way he said his name made him furious, as if he knew him. As if he could be so personal. “And neither were Farlan and Isabel.” Smith continued but that had been a line too far for Levi. 

He snapped. The long simmering rage he’d tried to bury with his grief flashed through him like an electricity that threw his body into a tense stance of attack. 

“You don’t get to speak about them!” He spat through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to speak their names.” He hissed.

Erwin was a perfect statue, eyes fixed on Levi, face frozen in a calm mask but his hands had fisted on the desk. The bandaged one not as tightly balled at the other. He remembered pressing the blade into the man’s tender flesh, how he was met with surprising resistance. When Levi made no move to advance but only stood there, chest heaving, the squad leader nodded slightly and lowered his eyes. 

“My apologies.” 

He let Levi gather himself, let him calm his breaths before he spoke again.

“It is not my intention to torment you.” He began, “Death is a fact of life in the Corps that we can not escape. But one needs to share that burden. We rely on our comrades to help us bare it.” 

Levi didn’t care what he had to say about crying on someone else's shoulder and recounting his nightmares. He wasn’t interested.

“Worry about your own burdens.” He rasped, his voice not nearly as strong as he hoped it was.

Smith looked at him closely, his eyes moving over his face under his heavy brow. “I am.” He said firmly, at last. 

Levi felt too exhausted to chase his meaning. They stared each other down in silence for a long moment before the squad leader let out a breath through his nose and looked away. Levi released a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding in all the while.

“I have to ask if you are still willing to aid me in the mission I mentioned before we returned.” His voice had evened out again to that cold, direct speech Levi had become accustomed to. It soothed his rage back into the numb annoyance he could work through. He could work with this.

“Are you going to give me any clues as to what you’ve got planned or can I just assume it’s as crazy as you’re last brilliant idea?” He drawled. He wanted details but he wanted it perfectly clear he didn’t trust the man’s judgement as far as he could throw him. And he wouldn’t budge until Smith bent.

But somehow he’d amused the man. The blond had turned, bringing a hand to cover his mouth, and the grin stretching his lips there, too late. 

“Something funny?” He raised a brow but he didn’t move a muscle otherwise. Erwin schooled his face and cleared his throat.

“Only that my last brilliant idea,” He mimicked, “was to have you transferred to my squad.” 

Levi stared, agape. “Why?” He balked. He hadn’t seen this coming, “Did Anja want to get rid of me? Did she ask to have me taken out of her squad?”

Smith sobered at that, even looked shocked for a split second. He straightened in his chair and looked at Levi intently, “No, nothing of the sort. There have been no complaints about your performance from Anja or any of the training captains.” He paused and considered something for a moment. “Perhaps that you lack a certain amount of respect for authority, but we both knew that already.” His eyes met Levi’s and there was something in the look that made Levi want to shrink away. He stood his ground. Smith smiled.

“I proposed the move.” He continued, “With full disclosure, I even got a bit of bite back from Anja over it.” He added, leaning forward slightly in his chair.

“But I was able to convince Commander Shadis that with the cadets graduating from the Academy shortly, we needed our most- patient Squad Leaders available to take on the new recruits and bring them into the fold.” Smith looked at him closely. “I wasn’t aware you’d grown so attached to your new squad. If I had known, I would have given you more warning.” 

“I’m not!” Levi said a bit too quickly, “I mean, it doesn’t matter to me but why do you want me moved to your squad? I can’t imagine the hound out there is going to be too thrilled about it.” He tried to look bored but he felt caged. 

“I want you close, Levi.” He answered pointedly. “While we work out this plan, it will be easier to convene in private if I already have a plausible excuse, and I won’t have to call you away from other duties as often like a have today.”

Levi considered him, “So you really want to do this?” He squared up to the squad leader who matched his eye contact unwaveringly, “Fine,” Levi shook his head “What’s the plan?”

Smith’s eyes flashed dangerously at that and he leaned forward, steepling his fingers.

“Please sit, we have much to go over.” 

 

***

 

With parting words not to speak of anything they had discussed behind closed doors to another soul, Levi was dismissed with a promise of further instructions in a weeks time into the care of the waiting sentry outside.

The first effective changes brought about by the shuffling of squad assignments were to Levi’s own sleeping arrangements. It had been reasoned that four incoming cadets could be housed in the room Levi was occupying on his own, and that it would be a much more prudent use of their limited facilities to relocate Levi to the company of his new squadmates. To their mutual displeasure, Zacharius escorted Levi to the barracks to gather his belongings once they had both choked down their cold suppers in an uncomfortable silence, most of the Corps having already moved along to their evening duties.

The giant man sniffed at the air of the barren room. Levi and the others hadn’t brought much with them from the underground; there hadn’t been much worth holding onto. What there was, he had already carefully folded up and tucked away into a canvas satchel hidden under one of the empty bunks. He bent low, all too aware of his position so close to the hulking soldier who had once shoved him face-first into the overflow of a gutter, and grabbed the satchel quickly. He took his civilian clothes from where they hung near his little window and folded them carefully, adding them to his satchel along with his soap ration already wrapped carefully in a scrap of rag he had taken from the laundry.

“Is that everything?” Zacharius eyed him suspiciously. Levi hesitated a beat before reaching under a limp pillow and pulled out a small blade. He made to tuck it away in his boot but he was halted with a chiding click of the tongue behind him. “I don’t think so.”

Levi turned to his new companion and scowled at his chest. “ _ What? _ ” 

“I won’t be sleeping easy with you around to begin with, but if we’re sharing close-quarters I want to know you’re less capable of gutting me.” He held out his hand and stared pointedly at the top of Levi’s boot.

He bristled, “I already told your squad leader; if I wanted to kill either of you, I’d’ve done it already.”

Zacharius didn’t budge, only wriggled the fingers of his open hand impatiently. “All the same, I’d rather be safe than slip open.”

Levi removed the knife from his boot, holding it by the hilt between his thumb and forefinger. He made a show of delicately placing it into the large, waiting palm. He glowered up at the soldier who turned to lead them through the door. 

“And he’s your squad leader, now.” He muttered over a broad shoulder, “Best get used to it.”

Levi took up the satchel and followed closely behind through the maze of corridors

He unpacked his few necessaries from his satchel under Zacharius’ watchful gaze and then stuffed it under his bed, back out of sight once more.

 

At the same instance that Levi moved into their quarters, Smith had a cot brought into his private working quarters and began to stay there when he had worked late into the night. Levi had no doubt that Zacharius had had no small part in pushing for Smith’s departure, but it probably hadn’t taken much to convince him anyway. The officer seemed to spend every waking minute he wasn’t shitting or eating crammed in his dingy little office working on something. 

Although he knew it showed how little faith Zacharius had in him, not to allow him that close to  _ their _ squad leader even as the two discussed espionage and treason, Levi was relieved. He couldn’t imagine trying to share the same space with two such huge men. The stench of them alone would have been unbearable without having to navigate around them in close quarters. As it was, he was pleasantly surprised, or at the very least, not completely appalled at his new squadmate’s standard of upkeep in his little room. His sensitive nose proved to be useful in more ways than one, and though there always was space for improvement, he didn’t feel as though he had to scour the walls and boil the sheets before claiming an empty bunk. 

The week followed in the habitual haze of duties, training and meals but now he spent his days almost entirely in the company of his looming second shadow. Much to his chagrin. Smith accompanied them for physical training after reveille; leading them through laps and repetitions around the field until they hauled themselves into the mess hall for breakfast. The officer would line up with them to take his weak coffee and runny porridge and then disappear to his musty office for the remainder of the morning, forcing Levi to sit in silence with Zacharius through his meal and then several long, dull hours of formation reviews until the midday meal. He rarely ever appeared until they made their way down toward the forest course. It was also the only time Zacharius openly spoke to him, both shouting directions to him with maneuvres he barely recalled the names for as he picked his way through the obstacles and slashed at posts with his dulled blades.

A command of “Again!” or a curt, “Well done.” his only feedback from the towering soldiers.

It was not as if Levi had had any particularly close relationship or really any fondness at all towards Anja or the fellow members of his short-lived former assignment; but in the brief time spent with them he had grown used to their familiar chatter around the table, their camaraderie on the training fields and courses through the woods, even as he kept himself separate and closed off from them. Without the distraction of other bodies and voices throughout the day, Levi felt even more isolated with his thoughts.

Once a pace was set and flaws in technique picked apart and exposed, the squad leader would disappear again with parting instructions to carry out their training self-monitored. Levi would run the course until supper time with little more than a grunt of approval or the irritable twitch of long nose as feedback from his solitary squadmate. And the silence quickly became suffocating.

A day later, as Levi squared off against Zacharius in the afternoon sun over the training field, Smith advised his comrade not to use the same tactics he had in the underground. Cautioned him against misjudging his opponent’s size, reminded him he was markedly shorter than his regular sparring partners.

Levi was surprised by the squad leader’s reference, that he would reignite and fan the flame of such a memory, but the other man was clearly more shocked. He saw his eyes widen and his nostrils flare. He looked ready to attack and Levi held his ground waiting for the strike. Then he dropped his stance and turned, marching back toward the barracks without a by your leave. Smith made no attempt to stop him.

“My apologies, that was careless of me.” He looked away, at a loss. They stood in the field a while, glued to their spots.

“Levi, would you see to whatever duties you can now and you may have the evening to yourself.” 

Smith dismissed him and excused himself, following after Zacharius’ trail leaving him stunned on his own.

That night after finishing his maintenance and cleaning duties Levi returned from bathing to find Zacharius asleep already, snoring loudly on his side of the room.

Hours later, as he dozed intermittently, Levi heard the clear beginnings of a struggle. He looked around in the darkness to see the man across the room thrashing and jerking in his sleep. He let out a low moan and then began crying, desperate and strangled in the grip of fear.

_ A nightmare. _

“ _ Hey! _ ”

Mike startled awake instantly and scanned the room with wild, blind eyes. They came into focus as he landed on Levi pressed up against the wall at the top of his bed with his knees tucked up to his chest. Mike took several deep, calming breaths and schooled his face into a scowl. He collected himself, righting his tangled sheets and rolled over onto his side.

“Get back to sleep.” He muttered at the wall.

Levi almost answered, voice working against his best judgment, but he stopped short. 

Mike half-turned, caught his eye in the faint moonlight. 

“I wasn't sleeping anyway.”  

“Try.” He turned back to the wall.

Levi’s frustration hit a breaking point.

“ _ I haven’t done any of this to you. _ ” He hissed across the space between their beds.

The soldier bolted up and nearly lunged across the distance. His face was twisted and grotesque in the pale light and shadows. Levi wished he’d kept his knife.

“ _ Yes, you have! _ ” Zacharius barked. He shook his head sharply. “Maybe no more than everything else but yes, you have.” The rawness of his voice, the steely look in his eyes. Levi felt electrified, every nerve urging him to strike out but his words clicked deep in his mind.

“Maybe so.” Levi acquiesced. He opened his hands, spread his arms wide. He was either placating a wild beast or inviting a fight, either was it felt like he was rolling over an exposing his soft underbelly.

Mike’s eyes snapped away. Levi exhaled.

“ _Shit._ ” Mike sighed. He dropped his shoulders and scrubbed at his face. “It’s so much easier to blame you. I know he wants to protect us- _me,_ but at least you know what all his damned scheming is for. I’m sitting here in the fucking dark losing everyone I ever gave a damn about and I don’t even get to know if it’s fucking worth all this!” 

Levi didn’t dare move. It all came crashing down on him, ringing through his head. Zacharius’ broken voice, Smith’s lies, Lobov’s bribe. Each of their comrades had died blindly chasing after something they couldn’t even see, something they didn’t have a damn clue about, each of them thinking they were following something with meaning, something with promise. Someone they could believe in. Blind leading the blind over a ledge.

But he was right, at least he knew Smith’s end goal- part of it at any rate. Mike was still lost in the dark, groping after the only real thing left to hold on to.

“I’m sorry about that.” Levi drawled. 

“Aren’t we all.” Mike grumbled. 

Levi hesitated, they were teetering at the edge of a precipice he wasn’t quite willing to conquer. But he wouldn’t be leaving, couldn’t now and Mike sure as shit wasn’t going anywhere. He swallowed back the lump forming in his throat and let it roil around in his guts a beat.

“I’m sorry about your squad- your friends.” He corrected.

Mike shifted, looked up at him in the dim light. He looked like the shell of some giant insect he’d seen outside the walls, like what was inside had withered and blown away. Hollow.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about-”

“It’s fine,” Levi waved him away. “Get some sleep. You look like shit.” He gruffed  and laid down in his bunk. He’d toed close enough to the edge for one night.

Little changed between them after that night, but the air had been cleared. While they still seldom spoke in one another’s sole company, the open hostility had been lifted from Mike’s person and the moments of quiet that stretched between them no longer lay heavy over Levi, oppressive and crushing. It felt as though they had agreed upon some unspoken truce. One did not tip-toe around nor interfere in the other’s peace. And they fell into the familiar comfort of routine.

It was not an easy existence, there was not camaraderie but a few days later when Levi unbalance Mike on the training field with a swipe of his foot against the back of his heels; he offered a hand up without gloating and Mike took it without shame, rising from the ground saying,

“Good. Again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some stuff happened, but not a lot actually happened. I promise the next chapter will have a bit more action! 
> 
> Once again thank you for reading, every kudos and comment is hugely appreciated.
> 
> find me on tumblr [@smiss-miss](https://smiss-miss.tumblr.com)  
> and on discord @lervin-smiss
> 
> talk to me, ask me questions, send me pics of your pets!


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